Sunday, February 29, 2004

i've been bad. I haven't watered them because i figured they would be getting water from all the rain we've had. but i think they were just under the awning enough to not catch any rain. so pretty much all my herbs look dead except my oregano.

my kaffir lime tree was very sad, and its leaves toward the bottom have started to curl.

my meyer lemon bush hadn't even been planted yet. So i pulled it out of it's home depot pot to transfer into the new pot. Half the roots came off... :( not a good sign i think... but i put it all in the new pot with more soil... and watered everything...

Minger was going to make himself a pansy shirt, but it didn't work out. So I decided to make him a pansy purse. I made it last night/this morning around 3am-4am (silly me, that meant i didn't get up till 2pm today!). I found an old skirt from old navy in my donation pile (it was from high school and was way too small for me, plus it harkened back to that old librarian look...), and made a pansy purse!

Friday, February 27, 2004

I was highly aggravated after going into school today. I was supposed to meet with my advisor to talk about my work on honors. Well, she left for lunch, and said she'd be back in 20 min to discuss my paper. After an hour she still wasn't back. And this other woman came in and said she really needed to get on the computer I was doing my analysis on (her data was saved there). I told her I'd be off in 20 min when my advisor came back. After 20 min, my advisor still wasn't back, but i got off the computer in case the other woman came back (which I might add, she never did).

finally, my advisor came back, but she said she'd be back in a minute and went to go talk with some other grad students. After 45 more min, I went to go see if she was done. She was in an office laughing with about 4 other women, gossiping about how crazy another professor's class was (as in silly). Then she said to me, "sorry, this is just so much more fun than your paper" *ouch*

needless to say, I came home feeling pissed off and cranky. So I cleaned up my apartment a bit, and finally got around to cutting out my stencil of e. I cut it out and placed it over an old tank top and painted on fabric paint...

see!

it's a dark blue stencil

i'm thinking about writing around the bottom hem of the shirt either 1) some bands e + i like, or 2) names i use for e sometimes (this might be a little too cutesy, but no one else will know...ahem... besides you guys of course)

saw this on yellow world. Apparently McDonalds has a whole page on being Asian. The front page says,
" We're Asian and Pacific Islander Americans "living on the rim," where our diverse cultures and the everyday American lifestyle become one. We're hanging on to our great traditions while we move to the beat of the times. We honor our heritage - but we love being Americans. From high fashion to high tech, from Asian Pacific American hip hop to haute cuisine, we're weaving the threads of our culture into the fabric of everyday American life. Whether we're sipping green tea or enjoying a Big Mac® sandwich, we're helping make the magic mix called America become even richer. And McDonald's is right there with us, everyday!"

the whole page is very late '90's in its feel. I'm not actually that disturbed by this, although, I find it very weird that Mickey D's is suddenly claiming stake in Asian Americans.

Thursday, February 26, 2004

I made a present for someone. I mussed up a bit, but overall, I'm excited about it anyway. I can't post it here yet, because it might be seen, and i don't know how to lock blogger posts.

eventually I'll post pics of it....

i'm just giddy with anticipation...I love making people things!

sheesh, i'm so silly.

e was gone for soooo long this afternoon. he didn't get back from his field trip till 8pm. It's a good thing I wasn't stuck at school till then. Unfortunately, since i didn't go into school today, I gotta go in tomorrow to work on my honors stuffs.

i'm working my way through the emotions book: how to raise emotionally healthy children. It's filled with annecdotes that annoy me, and it's sort of irritating in its voice.
fu, minger, and i have come to the conclusion that there are no asian kids on the cover because asian parents are not concerned with their children's emotions. They just want us to do well in school and respect our elders. oh yeah, and we need to grow up to be doctors or lawyers (oops, i guess I failed that one ;) )

Actually the most irritating thing about this book is that it has no chapters, or at least, it doesn't read as though it has chapters. The sections all run together. This might seem small and insignificant, but honestly, I always mentally tell myself that I can take a break from reading "after the next chapter." so if i can't tell I've finished a chapter (well then I must be stupid... duh...) then I don't get my break. Truly, I can actually tell when a section ends, but because there is no physical space (a blank page, whatnot) between the chapters, my inclination is toward reading until i find one...
I guess that means I should finish the book soon.

k, back to reading with my majorly throbbing headache... here's some silly pictures I took for asiancuties' funny face theme

found an old retro skirt that I wanted to convert into a purse. I chopped off the bottom quarter of the skirt and made it into a saddlebag style purse and added a white felt cutout I made of a squirrel (I know, it barely resembles a squirrel, and i should have made it black like the squirrels around stanford, but oh well).

I sewed up the hem of the rest of the skirt, and now have a very retro (maybe too retro) skirt. It would look better as a mini skirt. I'll think about that though.

I also bought a corset I might adapt into clothes, and e found me this great little blue suede stationary holder that is already an adorable purse like thing, I just need to figure out how I want to make a strap for it.

I plan to stencil this weekend if I get all my project work done.

Fred died on Angel tonight. But I always thought she was too whiney. She came back as this cool blue haired/icy being. I'm thrilled to see next week's episode.

Wednesday, February 25, 2004

You simply don't know what to believe, but you're willing to try
anything once. Western values, Eastern values, hedonism and minimalism, you've spent
some time in every camp. But you still don't have any idea what camp you belong in.
This makes you an individualist of the highest order, but also really lonely. It's
time to chill out under a tree. And realize that at least you believe in
ferries.

Monday, February 23, 2004

this one actually took a lot more sewing. I plan to use red ribbon in the top runching, but I currently only have blue. The v-neck came out off center, but it almost looks like it's supposed to be that way. I did take in the sides to make it a slimmer fit on me, but I still might take it in a little more to have a cuter fit.

i stumbled across some t-shirt surgery sites today. My first surgery was on my AID's walk shirt that was way too large. I'm still working on getting it to a point I'm happy with, so I'll post a pic of that when it's ready.

I did put together a new death cab for cutie shirt from an old shirt I didn't like that much in the first place. I love the way it came out. The letters I used are adorable!
see:

Wine party (x-posted to my munchies blog):We had our first wine party today at Fu's place. We gifted our host a set of white and red wine glasses as well as a few flexible cutting boards (since vendetta took most of the others when she left). The wine theme was cabernet sauvignon. We eventually had 9 bottles of wine at the party which was way too much, even for tasting. We kept a booklet of the different wines tried with our comments in it. I would post which wines there were, but I left the book at fu's place.

There was actually much tension at the party for several reasons. 1. the food wasn't ready till around 9:30 or 10pm and people were starving. normally this might not be so bad, but fu's house isn't as stocked as ours, so people couldn't snack on anything after the cheeses (not really fu's fault, we did choose the recipe for dinner that took 3 hrs) 2. as we drank more, we lost more inhibitions and got testier 3. there was roommate tension among some of the people.

on the major plus side, the dinner was EXCELLENT. It was a variation on the pork stew with prunes soaked in brandy recipe from the Greatest Recipes book that my aunt and uncle sent us. Instead of cream and white wine for the stew, fu substituted (at ming's suggestion) red wine and double the amount of onions. The pork was tender and the whole stew was amazingly flavorful. I might try to post this variation recipe later.

on a negative side, all the sulfites in the wines gave me a major headache later in the night. in the future, we should try to keep it to five bottles of wine per party i think. Towards the end, people couldn't make great judgements about the wines (whether from drunkenness or an unclean palate).

Other:-negs-

I tried to read my emotion pop culture book for class today. It's so cheesy/boring I find my mind wandering after each sentence. I thought I could be entertained laughing at the cheesiness, but now it seems like it might just waste my time. Either way, I have to get through the book very very quickly so I can write it up in the next week.

I've been pretty stressed about my Comm 169 project. Our paper is due this Wednesday, and I'm still sort of clueless on what we're writing on/what our project justifications are for electricity help in Nepal.

I don't know exactly how to make one of my friends feel better. I can tell how short he is getting with everyone/thing when he is stressed about his roomie situation, but I feel sort of unable to help out much besides offer refuge which is only a bandaid solution anyway.

I tried Aveeno's face scrub today. It made my cheeks burst out in hives. Sadness. I hate wasting money. maybe e can use it. it makes me timid about trying the oatmeal lotion by aveeno that i just bought as well (although, I know my face is much more sensitive than the rest of my skin).

In the stress of spilled wine, no food, and major tension, I tried to help fu with cooking the noodles and ended up sticking part of my hand in boiling water... don't ask. blah...

e and i have been extra touchy with each other for some reason. we keep reading each other's tone incorrectly. no harm is ever meant though. I attribute it to stress.

-pos-

Costco had amazing candle sets for low prices. It made me sad I bought so many candles from ross that were more expensive and not as good, but oh so happy about the obtaining of the candle sets. I also bought a new ionic hair dryer from Conair. I forgot how full blow dried hair can get when it has layers. It's nice.

I'm having lots of fun doing my t-shirt surgery. it's been so long since i got to get crafty.

we bought frames. I can frame my magic washer print as soon as i make a matting :) score! and that frame in the hallway can go up when we put the replacement plexiglass in (we broke the real glass that came with the frame).

i think i saw my fav actress from law and order svu on a food network show. (the lawyer : Alex. But her hair is a darker/redder blonde and her smile was larger than it ever was on svu)

lots of clean laundry since the 7 loads the other day.

honors research is coming along. and I'm finding some interesting results I may post later after I make my subject population a little more equal.

the fly that was in my house (and resisted repeated magazine attacks) flew out the door as we left for the wine party...YES!!

My comm 169 midterm sucked majorly. It was a take home exam, which meant it was largely dependent on rereading materials and quoting from them.

Understandably/annoyingly, there was a strict word count maximum of 700 words per question (each question was divided into at least 3 sections). This was a painfully difficult to keep to, and I found my self having to prune out 120 words out of my question 1 at 3 am this morning.

After printing out/finishing my stupid test, I had to face the mound of 8 loads of laundry that I had spent several hours doing yesterday. So until around 4 am-ish, I folded clothes so that I could get them off the bed. I did get to watch American Idol from last night (I recorded it because I was busy watching my midterm). Last night's performances were horrid by the way. Thankfully the judges saw that. It was painful to listen to the contestants (I was actually very surprised given that nearly all the contestants last week were AMAZING!). There was even a girl from Palo Alto on last night, who very poorly represented the town. I will not be watching tonight to see who won. No one should have won IMO. Take some people from last week please!!! I can't help but think that the producers somehow planned to have an amazing group the first week, and follow it up with a horrible week (just to hear the judges rag on the contestants).

Our new neighbors had sex the other night - very loudly. This struck me as odd, mainly because I have not been witness to cries of other peoples' passions before. I would have thought that in a dorm setting, I would have heard more people getting it on... but no, I guess I lived around very chaste students.

On another note, I'd really like to get to know our neighbors. They are younger than the other residents. I've always wanted to have good neighborly relations... maybe so i can go over and ask to borrow a cup of sugar or something neighborly like that.

Tuesday, February 17, 2004

we saw it under I-Cheung's recommendation and my curiosity. It had some cute moments, and Josh Duhammel (All my children hottie)
was fun to look at.

ooh here's another one

Ahem! uh but i digress...
the movie was of course cheesy, and the plot was a giveaway from the start. But! I do think this would be a nice movie to cuddle up with your sweetie with when it comes out on dvd. Grab a blanket and popcorn, and don't expect major enlightenment. It's mildly entertaining.

Of all the irrational numbers, you are the most intense. By nature you are powerful, although sometimes you can spiral out of control. You are good with money; the interest seems to just compound whenever you are near. When someone uses the word "exponential" they are probably talking about you.

In some ways you and φ are a nearly perfect match. Not to mention how attractive φ is. But then, there is the remarkable π...

Tuesday, February 10, 2004

e should be excited about this, firebird got upgraded and changed into a firefox! . Of course this all happened after I downloaded firebird like a week ago! But I can't wait to download and use firefox, I really really like firebird, especially with the tab window feature. its main downfall for me so far is the fact that i need to download all the plug-ins as I go, since i'm still early in the firebird usage.

I've been feeling like a good little consumer lately. Resisting cute makeup and clothing has been hard. I fell hard for Benefit's Benetint cheek stain. But GOD IT'S DAMN PURTY! *burst into chorus* "I love it, I love it, I love it, and where it goes I'll follow, I'll follow, I'll follow!".

I also went into Nieman Marcus for the first time. It was such an intimidating experience. Honestly, even the building in the shopping center is elitist. It walls itself off from the common folk, only putting windows on the side meant for it's customers (ie, those who only park to walk into NM, not for any of the other silly mall stores). And when I went to pay for my new (and oh so wonderful, yay i love it) new Kiehl's lip balm in 30G (only $7.50 I might add), the Kiehl's lady kindly informed me that they do not take visa/mastercard, only AMEX, cash, or check. Boy did I feel low brow! I also felt bad because I didn't dress up for the occasion (don't you feel like you need to dress a little better when shopping? they treat you better I think), but I had just come from a long day of classes.

Oh and I bought the infamous Shu Uemura eye lash curler, because the lady at Sephora talked me out of getting the heated curler. But infamous shu leaves my eyelashes almost in the same state as before the shu. Oh shu, why have you failed me?!

Ack, but I still haven't gotten rid of my consumer itch (sounds gross when I put it that way, huh?). I've even got a list of make-up wants I've accumulated sitting on my 'desktop.' And since discovering Makeup Alley (thanks to Munkaya) and the Asian Beauty lj community, I feel much more excited and confident in my make up purchases, plus, I'm even thinking of engaging in a swap on MUA to try some new makeup and get rid of some stuff that doesn't really fit my skin tone.

I also recently wire wrapped a fossil that my grandmother bought me down in so cal. I wanted to make it into a pendant, and I'm quite excited about how it has turned out, I'll post pics of it soon, since I want to send a pic of it to my grandma.
[edit adding picture]

i think if the mods on asian cuties actually counted, they'd see I was rejected, but they haven't gotten around to the "aiyaaaah uncute!" stamp yet...
[edit] I just got an acceptance stamp to asian cuties... maybe the mods voted for me and their vote counts double?

Monday, February 02, 2004

Paul posted this on his bloggy, but since I know few people actually read his, I'm reposting it here. Just imagine me rolling my eyes while reading the entire story (sounds actually rather difficult, huh?)
Engineering geek names son version 2.0I can't believe the mother gave in to that. Honestly, if I were the kid, I'd be pissed my parents named me in such a gimmicky way. Plus, kids get enough crap about their names anyway. This boy will be sick of explaining the story of why he's 2.0 and not "the 2nd," although I'm sure his dad will get a kick out of telling it to everyone forever.

there's this interesting reproduction of an advertisement I want to get on ebay. i'm not telling you what it is until i secure it. it's actually a buy it now, but i want to make sure i can pick it up and not pay the 6 dollars shipping and handling since the seller resides in Palo Alto. Suffice it to say for now that it is an interesting piece of history for a Chinese American. I would obviously prefer to buy the real thing vs a reproduction (I did purchase a non reproductrion trade card that is similar to this one although not quite as cool. I decided that it would be nice to collect Chinese American historical bits. I'll let you know if I get the thing or not.

actually, I just got home, and guess what arrived? My trade card of course so I took a picture (i know i should have scanned, but the camera was closer)
I plan to put it in a larger frame with historical reference facts around it.

O, and I bought the poster I was talking about earlier. The people are in palo alto, and they said to be neighborly, they wouldn't charge me shipping, but they had no retail outlet. So I payed them 3 bucks instead of 6 because they deserve some handling fees. Anyway, it is a reproduction of the 1885 advertisement for the Magic Washer.
look closely at the bottom. it says, " The Chinese must go. We have no use for them since we got this Magic Washer"
A similar print can be purchased here but notice they cut off the top and the bottom which I find are an integral part of the image. Encarta says the bottom part refer[s] to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 and the pervasive anti-Chinese prejudice of the time."